Fish Manure Factory

The Remnants of the Fish Meal Factory at Cove
Bay (a forerunner to what was planned at Clashfarquhar).

Some people’s perceptions of Portlethen are influenced by
the smell hanging in the air there at certain times of the day. This can
be attributed directly to McIntosh Donald’s meat factory located in the
centre of Portlethen, next to the retail park. The smells, vapours,
fumes and aromas emanating from the abattoir can be quite powerful,
distinctive and, most of the time, unpleasant.

Having said that, improvements within the factory, with
the introduction of new machinery and filtering systems have resulted in
the betterment of the quality of air in the vicinity today. Nowadays the
smell is more likely to be noticed as an occasional whiff confined to
the areas immediately next to the factory, unlike in earlier years where
there was an overwhelming and powerful stench that could occasionally be
detected on the coastal villages one mile away if the wind happened to
be blowing in the right direction.

However McIntosh Donald’s (formerly Donald’s) meat
factory wasn’t the first planned factory within the Portlethen district
that has caused a smelly controversy, there was a predecessor over forty
years prior to Donald’s arrival where the aroma would have been a lot
worse. In fact if this factory had gone ahead in 1924, the arrival of
Donald’s Meat factory in the 1960’s may have been like a breath of fresh
air!

How many people were aware that Mr. James M. Davidson, an
Aberdeen Fish Merchant submitted a planning application to build a Fish
Manure factory at Clashfarquhar, near to Downies Village in 1924? This,
in fact, did happen and very nearly became a reality.

Originally, an application was made to Aberdeen Town
Council to build and establish a Fish Meal factory at Point Law in Torry,
however this application was ultimately rejected with the reason stated
as “Point Law in the midst of a populous area was totally unsuited to
the establishment of a Fish Meal factory owing to the annoyance likely
to arise from the transport and handling on arrival of raw material”.

From this we are able to establish that there was a need
for factories that were capable of handling and processing fish meal and
fish guano, but at the same time the construction of any such facility
should be made at a distance well away from populated and residential
areas.

Mr Davidson did his homework and came up with an
alternative solution – why not use a site he had pinpointed at
Clashfarquhar, near the village of Downies? At this location there were
only two inhabited houses within a quarter mile of the site, the rail
network was next to it and road transport links were close at hand – all
factors that were in his favour.

Understandably the local population, on the whole,
disagreed with the concept, their chief worries being the smell, the
unsightliness of the building and the fact such an industry was likely
to discourage further residential or industrial development in the
immediate area.

Residents from Portlethen and Newtonhill were
particularly vehement in their objections and protestations, the latter
village claiming that that they were endeavouring to attract new
residents, considerable cost had been spent on improving existing houses
and if such a factory was to be built it would be a blight on the
landscape and discourage potential investors and new residents.

Paradoxically, the nearest village of Downies was mainly
in favour of the development and building of a factory on their
doorstep. These residents knew which side their bread was buttered and
saw potential new job opportunities which would have been a boon in the
1920’s and an antidote to the terminal decline of the local white
fishing industry which had the village dying on its feet. Perhaps too,
like the fictional village of Ferness in the film “Local Hero”, the
villagers saw the lure of big money and a saviour in the figure of Mr.
Davidson, so much so that they ignored the environmental constraints
that such a development would possibly have on the area. The smell of
money, in all likelihood, outweighed the smell of dead fish.

For those interested in statistics a total of 381 local
residents had petitioned against the scheme whereas a figure of 175
local residents had registered support for the factory to go ahead.

There were, however, a considerable array of other
objectors in addition to those residents in Newtonhill and Portlethen,
and these included the Education Authority, the Educational Trust,
Stonehaven Town Council, Aberdeen District Committee, Kincardineshire
County Council and most of the local landlords. With those influential
groups against the development of the factory Mr. Davidson’s planning
application was refused and it appeared that would have been the end of
it.

Mr. Davidson made an appeal to the Scottish Board of
Health and this was heard in Stonehaven near the end of 1925. After many
months of long deliberation a decision was reached on the 31st July 1926
where it was intimated that the Scottish Board of Health had approved of
the details of Mr. Davidson’s scheme, and despite the local
protestations that had been made previously, they went ahead and granted
a license for the establishment of a factory at Clashfarquhar.

The objectors, in return, made a counter appeal to the
Secretary of State for Scotland to overturn the Scottish Board of
Health’s decision and so followed a full enquiry that resulted in
“experts” being called upon to give advice and evidence on behalf of
both sides.

One subject that frequently cropped up in the ensuing
debate was that of an existing Fish Meal factory that was located in the
settlement of Cove Bay, approximately six miles north of Clashfarquhar.

Most of the comments in respect to the Cove factory were
of a negative nature; that it was a nuisance on account of the smell
(“Any passer in a train, when the wind is in the east, can testify to
this and the fumes are carried and are offensive for a great distance”);
that the factory there was underused and can handle all the local
business there is without the need for another factory; that residential
building at Cove had ceased on account of the factory being there.

It was admitted that the factory in Cove was a nuisance
and that the problems with the smell there were real however it was also
argued that new technology would ensure that the factory at
Clashfarquhar would not suffer the same fate.

Local residents also argued their case that “Now the day
of the smaller fishing villages is passed much development is the chief
hope for the future of this part of the county and as the local
conditions are so favourable these prospects are high. It is therefore a
great hardship that such hopes should be blighted by the erection of a
factory which no one in the locality wants”.

There was also some doubt about the factory’s ability to
prevent contamination and pollution in respect to the way it planned to
handle offensive effluence and waste (through waste pipes running near
to Burn O’ Daff to an outfall in the sea at the mouth of the same burn).

Mr. Davidson and his lawyers hit back by producing
additional drawings, photographs, using experts with scientific and
technological expertise. The Scottish Health Board quoted circumstances
where some of their officers had visited Mr. Davidson’s other factory in
Glasgow and “stood over the outlet tower in the line of the escaping
vapours but were unable to discern any trace of the characteristic
noxious odour of the vapours from the concinerators”. It was also stated
that the processes inspected at Glasgow would represent, in experimental
form, the principles to be embodied in the Clashfarquhar plant.

It would appear that Mr Davidson had expertise,
technology, an official government body, and all the commercial benefits
stacked in his favour whereas the objectors were more concerned about
the environment, keeping the status quo in the area and were worried
that, potentially, they would be living in a stinking environment for
years to come.

Given these circumstances you may have thought that the
Secretary of State for Scotland was more likely to give Mr Davidson
their backing and rubber stamp the decision passed out by the Scottish
Health Board. Instead they backed the objectors and the Fish Manure
project at Clashfarquhar was confined to the bin. From that point
onwards the site at Clashfarquhar was not looked at again as a potential
industrial area, although Mr Davidson tentatively proposed shifting the
original site approximately half a mile eastwards to a location where
the farm at Burn o’ Daff is sited. Today the locations in this area are
still a mix of wild and agricultural land.

Was this the right decision, or did the Secretary of
State go by his heart rather than his head? Maybe he was rather
perceptive in the decision he made because even up to the 1980’s there
were still problems being created by Fish Meal processing plants and
their associated smells. Who can recall the controversy of the Fish Meal
factory in Tullos with its related “pong” and how long that particular
debate had to run before being sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction?

I believe that it was the correct decision to forego the
site at Clashfarquhar as a place for processing fish waste. Downies
isn’t a village where you would expect to have to contend with the
constant smell of processed, rotting fish waste, and is more suited to
the fresh and bracing sea breezes that fill the air.

Now, what can we do about all those farmers who insist on
“muck-spreading” over their fields two or three days every year?